MY MEMORIES: Seitz and the Scranton Tribune ‘family’

Posted on February 7, 2024 by The Dunmorean

The late Jack Seitzinger, fourth from left, is shown with his children Matthew, Geralyn, John, Maripat and Mark.

By Maureen Hart

I didn’t know if I was going to write this story or not. After all, our sports editor Steve Svetovich has a wonderful interview on page 4 with Guy Valvano, our old colleague from the Scrantonion-Tribune, regarding our recently deceased coworker Jack Seitzinger.

That ‘s good, I thought to myself. After all, although I joined the Tribune in 1972, I certainly did not work in the sports department, something that would have been unheard-of at that time. (To give you an idea, I have a doctor friend who recalls in that same year being told she would not be allowed to do the surgical rotation unless she signed a document pledging never to practice surgery. She was the only female in her class, there were no female professors, and she signed and proceeded to clean surgical instruments for her whole rotation. Young women today have no idea….)

Anyway I was interviewed for a position in what was quaintly called the Social Department as assistant to the formidable editor, Gene Brislin. Gene had been with the newspaper since the war years when, with a lot of the men away, she was able to write front page news stories, and was by all accounts, a phenomenal reporter.

But when the men came back from Europe and the Pacific, Gene was dumped back to write weddings and cover parties. She wasn’t happy about it, but she had no choice.

I, on the other hand, didn’t care where they put me. I had a job. On a newspaper! I would remain there until the Trib closed 18 years later.

I won’t say I wasn’t nervous, being one of only two women in the heavily smoke-filled newsroom, but I am here to swear that that rough and tumble group of newspaper reporters right out of “The Front Page” could not have been kinder to me. Even when I was nervous and asked a stupid questions such as “Does our stylebook capitalize the word Jello?” (I was retyping that week’s school. )

No ever told an off-color joke or used a dirty word around me, not in the newsroom or in the even rougher composing room. I am certain they were cussing their heads off when I wasn’t there, but they were respectful of both me and Gene, without either of us ever saying anything to them.

Anyway, I was hired in April and at the time I was living in a studio apartment in Wilkes-Barre. I planned to move to Scranton in June, to a second floor apartment on Clay Avenue. My stepfather planned to drive up from Mechanicsburg to move my stuff.

That is, until Tropical Storm Agnes hit Wilkes-Barre the day before my move. Nobody could get in or out of the city. I couldn’t even get out of my apartment until the National Guard came along a night or two later in motor boats. I found a ride to Scranton, by lying that I was covering this big story. (Well, actually, my editor did ask me to write what then the first first-person account of the disaster, and my landed on the front page. My first and only coup. But that was after I had already lied about my urgent assignment.

I slept on the floor of my unfurnished apartment that night. Then Gene and her husband insisted I come and stay at their home, where I bunked for three weeks.

Finally, there was information that people who lived in Wilkes-Barre would be allowed in to retrieve some things. I talked about it in the newsroom, unsure what to do because it was such a restricted, chaotic situation in Luzerne County.

But two of my coworkers told me they would move me. I told them I wanted to get everything –which wasn’t much since I was just out of college. They said that would be fine.

They did not realize I had box after box of books which were my most precious possessions. There was no elevator working, and I lived on the 11^th floor of a 12-story high rise. But in the summer heat, Jack Seitzinger and Danny Orr, who barely knew me, stepped up and moved all those books to Scranton. They would tease me about for years. I’m sure they must of have wished they had gone golfing or fishing that day, but they never truly complained and said they were glad to help. They were just grateful that the 12 flights of stairs were going down, and that they only had to drag everything one flight up to my new apartment.

I was 22 years old, in a city where I did not know anyone but Gene and the guys in the newsroom, most of whom worked at night while I had a day shift.. Reading his obituary, I realized with a shock that 52 years ago, Jack Seitzinger would have been just 30 years old.

Another thing that took me by surprise in the obit was mention that Jack played minor league baseball with the Detroit Tigers, as well as semi-pro basketball. I figured everybody must have known that except for me.

But Guy Valvano, who worked side by side with Jack covering all the local sports, mentions in his interview that he never knew that either. It proves what a solid, down-to-earth guy, modest Jack was.

Valvano last saw him at church, and though I do not know precisely when, I am certain I had my last glimpse of Jack at the Green Ridge Little League field where he and his wife Geri consistently supported their children, and then their grandchildren. I assure you, so many of us are going miss seeing him there this year.

Letter from the Editor: Remembering John M. Hart Jr.

Posted on September 6, 2023 by The Dunmorean

By Maureen Hart

It is with both sorrow and pride that the staff and I have worked to produce this memorial edition in honor of my late husband, John M. Hart Jr., founder and publisher of The Dunmorean for the past 35 years.

We will miss John and his leadership immensely, but we are proud and determined to continue his legacy at The Dunmorean, which, ironically, became the last locally-owned newspaper in Lackawanna County on the day of his funeral when the century-old Scranton Times was sold to a conglomerate.

People mentioned to me on that day that John would have been pleased to have survived as the last local paper, because he had worked as a tough competitor against the Times during his reporting days at the old Scrantonian-Tribune.

But, actually, John would have been deeply saddened by such a major loss to Northeastern Pennsylvania. On his behalf, I offer my sympathy to the entire Lynett family and their employees. I’ve been there–when the Tribune closed in 1990 it was exactly like losing family, much less your career and your own professional identity.

John believed in community journalism wholeheartedly, and although The Dunmorean switched to upbeat, positive coverage of Bucktown and its citizens when it became a monthly, it was originally a weekly publication that covered the police and fire departments, school board, and council.

John and I both owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude to those who have helped in this labor of love, including Steve Svetovich, our writer, columnist, and sports editor who started with us in the newspaper business 40 years ago at the Tribune and has been with John every step of the way in multiple journalistic endeavors.

John Hart Jr., left, is shown in a three generation photo taken on the day of his grandson’s christening at St. Paul’s Church, Green Ridge.. Atty. John M. Hart III is holding John Martin Hart IV,

Cheryl Sempa Radkiewicz is our very popular food columnist, and her association with John and me also dates back to the Tribune where her late father, Frank Sempa, was city editor, and Cheryl took over from her grandmother as Down Valley correspondent. Cheryl has also followed John through his various ventures including The Scranton Weekly, The Mid Valley News, and The Dunmorean.

A newer colleague, and such a valuable one, is Emily Fedor Gerchman, who came aboard right out of college to be our online editor as The Dunmorean entered the digital age. Emily is a native Dunmorean who brings valuable insight to this publication.

Dunmorean Tim Drewes is our official photographer, but fellow Dunmorean Rich Banick has always contributed greatly to the publication and continues to do so.

Dunmoreans Nibs Loughney assisted John with ad sales and Sarah Masucci serves as our art director.

Bill Healey and Bob Sulger handle distribution of the paper on the first Wednesday of every month, and they often describe how people are eagerly taking copies of the Dunmorean out of their hands when they deliver at the many outlets where the paper is available.

Last, but not least, is our legal columnist John Hart III, John’s son, who is an attorney with law offices on Grove Street in Dunmore.

On a personal level I want to share with our readers that John and I were colleagues, friends, and finally husband and wife over a period of 50 years. We met at the Tribune in 1973, shortly after I married my first husband, Jorge Garcia-Pons. In 1979, John married his beloved Meg Holland. In 2005, both families were hit with unimaginable tragedy when Jorge died on St. Patrick’s Day after a long illness and Meg died very suddenly that August.

And so here we are again, our combined families sharing grief and trying to find positive ways to move forward. We believe The Dunmorean is one way to do so, and we hope the ever-generous and loyal people of the borough will support that dream.

We have always been grateful to our wonderful advertisers. During the pandemic, when business was at a stand-still, our advertisers stayed with us. I don’t know how they did it when their restaurants, offices, and showrooms were shut down, but the majority of them stayed.

I will never forget that support, but I also know that for many of them, their loyalty was based on their friendships with John Hart. I hope all of John’s friends will stay with us now, even though he is gone. This really was his dream, his pride and joy, and we hope to continue bringing good news to Dunmore for a long time.

Sincerely,
Maureen Hart

Morgan Library worth a day trip to New York

Posted on February 28, 2023 by The Dunmorean

By Maureen Hart

I love writing about travel and places I’ve been. But while castles in Spain and ancient monuments in Rome are quite exciting, sometimes a day trip close to home can show you things just as amazing.

Last June, my book group read The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict, which is the story of Belle da Costa Greene, the young woman who took over as librarian for the billionaire J. Pierpont Morgan at a time when women did not usually hold such important positions. That is not even the most amazing thing about Bella though. She was a black woman who passed as white in an era when she would not even been allowed to enter the places she visited to obtain items for the library, much less hob nob with the upper crust of society in their mansions on Fifth Avenue.

Suffice it to say that her exquisite taste and knowledge, financed with Morgan’s money, combined to create an amazing repository of such valuables as folios of Shakespeare (one of Morgan’s most sought-after and treasured acquisitions), original scores by renowned composers such as Mozart, medieval and renaissance artwork, and of course, more ancient manuscripts and books by Geoffrey Chaucer and many writers. Even the brass bell from his sailing ship, the Corsair, has pride of place in the more modern entry way to the Museum.

Having spent the previous month gaping over Botticelli’s in the Ufizzi Gallery and Michaelangelo’s sculpture of David in Florence, you would think this comparatively small library/museum would have been a let-down for me. But in fact, it was exquisite. Morgan didn’t collect for sheer volume, he collected things he loved that reflected his special interests.

And he constructed the perfect building to house his treasures—filled with historic architectural features such as the stained glass ceiling in the library room itself, as well as archways, fireplaces, windows and rooms as fine as anything on the continent.

We were a very giddy book group to be able to see the Morgan buildings and artifacts for ourselves after reading the book that described how all of this was accomplished.

Visiting the Morgan Library takes a bit of planning, as you must purchase tickets in advance for a certain time of admission. This keeps crowds at a very reasonable size, which is a big plus when you want to take your time looking as ancient artifacts or the covers of books which are literally priceless.

We had also hoped to visit it’s much-praised restaurant, but it has been closed recently, and so we just had tea in the solarium cafeteria and ate downtown after our visit.

IF YOU GO:

Built in 1924, the Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th Street to the north. PHONE: (212) 685-0008 for more information or reservations.